"Let the beauty we love be what we do." – Rumi

Tag Archives: Self Improvement

Today, I celebrate my one year anniversary of being smoke free. Yesterday one year ago (April 5) I smoked my last cigarette and swore that was the end. (If you’re new to my blog and would like to read about how I quit hop on over to my post, “How I Quit Smoking Cold Turkey“. ) I had quit smoking at various points in my life in the past but always failed to make it past the year point, this time however I was mentally armed and that is what has kept me free from cigarettes for the past year.

How has my life changed without cigarettes? First off, I have had more money in my pocket, I estimated that I’ve saved myself approximately $1050 dollars by not smoking last year, that’s a conservative number and it’s definitely not less than that. (If I’d finished my taxes already I would have a much more accurate estimate based on my smoking habits from the first four months of last year. I could have done a nice little estimate from the average.) Considering I was saving money by not smoking I had extra money to join a gym, buy a pair of tennis shoes and work on improving the health of my body.

I also eat a lot more now and more regularly than I used to. I’m hypoglycemic and instead of eating I could frequently use smoking cigarettes to give me a stimulant boost to keep my energy up. I did gain weight by not smoking, in total I’ve gained about fifteen pounds and gone up a size in clothing. I really struggled with that and had convinced myself that I needed to drop that weight and get back to the size I had been and thus spent almost all of last year berating myself internally for not having accomplished that yet. (Yes, I know I posted all those posts about self-love. I need them just as much as everyone else.) Last month as I was contemplating another milestone that I’m about to celebrate the self-love kicked in and I was finally able to appreciate this new shape that my body has settled into. Now, I know I’m healthy and while I still would like to be physically more fit and active (for the sake of being strong and having the endurance to do activities) I no longer feel the pressure for my body to go back to the way it was. I’m celebrating this more shapely form I’ve settled into because it represents who I am when I’m making healthy lifestyle choices like getting enough sleep, not drinking, not smoking, eating regularly and being more active. I know that as I make more changes in my life and as time passes it will continue to change and each new transformation is really just an opportunity to celebrate the change and explore something new.

I’ve been a lot more productive because I channel my anxiety, nervous energy, fear, whatever it is into improving my life. I’ve managed to make a lot of changes around my house and in my life and its been really rewarding to see the results of my efforts.

I gained faith in my own willpower and earned trust in myself that I could keep my word to myself and follow through with a promise I’d made to myself. I gained self respect by honoring that commitment to myself and both of these things really helped to build my overall confidence in myself. When you start out on a journey it’s always scary because it’s uncertain where the road will lead and what sort of dark patches you may have to stroll through and sometimes it’s more pleasant to only remember the rainbows when we’re on the other side. I can tell you there were dark patches but I never once took a single puff from a cigarette. It was not for lack of wanting to either, there were many, many days where for my own sanity and that of others I thought maybe I should just go buy a pack but didn’t. I still wonder if I’ll ever have a cigarette in the future. Time will tell.

“When we have the courage to let the walls down – to know and embrace ourselves, despite our human failings, we also open the door to connecting in a more caring, empathetic, intimate way with the ones we love and with all living beings. Our brains are wired for survival, but also for empathy. We have mirror neurons that fire when we see other people’s pain. Let us learn to love ourselves so we can be more open and compassionate to others, and so we can take down the walls that limit who we can be and what we can contribute. The quotes below are intended as inspiration for your inward journey.” – via Psychology Today, The 50 Best Quotes on Self Love

Self Love Celebration Day 8

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh”

“When I talk of self-love, I am NOT advocating that we should stop caring for others, and just focus on ourselves. Being in service and giving back to your community is something I believe is very important. Showing kindness to others and demonstrating our caring for our loved ones is a key to having a fulfilling life. However, maintaining a balance is critical. You cannot keep giving to others if you do not give to yourself, first. It is like pouring water from a vessel: you cannot pour and pour without ever refilling it – eventually, it will run dry. Like that vessel, we, too, need to refill, recharge, and re-energize. ” – Self Love, Is It Selfish?

Self Love Celebration Day 10 –

(This one is not PG rated) If you’re going to talk about self love and leave sex out of the picture then you haven’t got a complete picture have you? We live in such a weird, hypocritical society where sex is used to sell almost every product imaginable yet there’s still negativity attached to real people in the flesh getting it on and women especially seem to harbor all of this guilt and embarrassment around being sexual beings.

“The bottom line here is that self-love equals better sex! The better you know yourself on multiple levels, the more you love and appreciate your strengths. The greater you honor yourself right now, the freer you will feel to express yourself in the bedroom, or even venture out to new locations. Experiencing healthy sexuality and enjoying the pleasures of the body involves awareness, authenticity, and presence. Truly releasing to pleasure, whether it is succumbing to orgasm or just gazing into your partner’s eyes, puts us in a vulnerable position beyond rational control.” – Awakening to Sexual Self Love

Self Love Celebration Day 11

As a person that seems to always walk the road less traveled, I have struggled a lot with approval and still do. Why? Because the road less traveled means that there aren’t many people along the way that you’re going and you aren’t likely to be encouraged. Ironically, the things that I deem the least important in my life receive the most attention and approval and the things that I’m extremely passionate and heartfelt about receive very little. Perspective is king, so I’ve started doing what I want and fulfilling the need for approval by being kind and supportive to myself and the reward for it all lies in the fact that I’m giving that passion an outlet and letting that voice inside me have a chance to speak even if no one seems to listen.

“The key to an authentic emotional life, like the key to an authentic sex life, is to follow your real desires.” – Stop Seeking Approval

Self Love Celebration Day 12

Self love is self care. 34 simple ways to begin your self care practice. In our electronic age it can be difficult to remember that we aren’t machines and we’re merely humans. Humans aren’t made to live and work and push the limit every day, all day, week after week. We just aren’t. Self care can feel like a selfish activity but it’s not. If we don’t maintain our cars, wash them, and provide them with fuel they won’t perform as well as if we regularly maintain and care for them. Humans are the same way, we need regular maintenance and self care to really shine and perform regularly.

I apologize for jumping ship on my Think Kit posts, I get really ambitious and think that I have time to do all of this fun stuff and then reality sets in and I realize that I don’t have enough time to accomplish all that I want. I thought the Think Kit post prompts were brilliant and quite helpful though so I have saved them all and will be using them to write throughout the year (hopefully just the next few months).

February has been coined Self Love Celebration Month by the amazing and wonderful author of Madly in Love With Me, Christine Arylo. On February 13th, women (Love Ambassadors) around the country will be hosting Self Love parties and a special (free!) Self Love Concert will be hosted in California and accessible via the internet for us all to enjoy. I really wanted to host my own self love party here in Indianapolis but realized that I don’t have enough resources (time and energy) to do so this year and it would just once again overextend me which is not a loving thing to do to oneself. So… I decided to celebrate in my own way by posting a post a day on my Facebook page on the topic of Self Love. I will post my Facebook posts here for you all to enjoy since my Facebook page is private.

Self Love Celebration, Day 1:

As I feel more safe and secure within myself,
my relationships become more safe and secure.
As I trust myself and the choices I make,
my connections become more trustworthy.
The more faithful I am to myself,
the more my world reflects that fidelity.
As I honour myself,
my interactions in the world become honourable.
And I realise that the Universe is an honourable place,
Of which I belong.

“The person in life that you will always be with the most, is yourself. Because even when you are with others, you are still with yourself, too! When you wake up in the morning, you are with yourself, laying in bed at night you are with yourself, walking down the street in the sunlight you are with yourself.What kind of person do you want to walk down the street with? What kind of person do you want to wake up in the morning with? What kind of person do you want to see at the end of the day before you fall asleep? Because that person is yourself, and it’s your responsibility to be that person you want to be with. I know I want to spend my life with a person who knows how to let things go, who’s not full of hate, who’s able to smile and be carefree. So that’s who I have to be.”
― C. JoyBell C.

Self Love Celebration, Day 3:

Affirmation:

I Love me as I am.

I Love the dark side of me.

I Love the unlovable parts of me.

via one of my favorite blogs, The Daily Love. You can read the entire post from that day, Loving Yourself When You Don’t Want To. Great tips and reminders there that in our moments of our darkness or perceived failures is when we need to love ourselves the most, not just the parts where loving ourselves comes easy.

Self Love Celebration, Day 4:

Christine Arylo, author of Madly in Love with Me has a free self love kit. Visit the link and you can download yours! I don’t care what gender, sexuality, age, religion, or political orientation you are we all deserve and need to love ourselves. You are the only one who lives in your head and heart!

One especially difficult day I did a google search on how to build self esteem and discovered Christine’s amazing free guide on self love. Her self love kit is what started this journey for me last year and it was the perfect little seed to start growing my self love tree. Download your, Free Self Love Kit and get started!

Self Love Celebration, Day 5:

Today, I’m excited to tell you about the free Self Love Concert taking place on 2/13/13 that you can tune into via the web. Throw a party and invite your loved ones or celebrate with a party for one. The concert will address the topics of taking good care of yourself, stopping the negative self talk and comparison, loving your body like a temple, and how to attract in loving relationships. Imagine if we taught the young generations this principles as children, don’t you think we’d have a profoundly different world?

Be your ideal best friend or partner to yourself. Having a rotten day and everywhere you turn there’s nothing but criticism? Feeling alone because there’s no one to turn to? Be there for you. If you’re upset, listen to yourself. Be patient and allow yourself to express the emotion that you feel and provide encouragement and support to yourself as you would to the people you love the most. Don’t berate yourself for being upset or tell yourself it’s unwarranted and uncalled for. You wouldn’t want your loved one to treat you that way would you? No, you would want a kind compassionate ear to listen, encouraging words of support and guidance, the knowledge that you were in the company of someone who gave you unconditional love and support in your failures and triumphs, and for your feelings and thoughts to be acknowledged and seen as valid and worthy of being heard. Love yourself enough to be that person to yourself and show yourself you are worth your time.

We know that getting healthy can generate some awesome non material rewards like better health, happier state of mind, longevity, stress reduction, better sleep, and less overall health problems. However, it’s still nice to receive some outside rewards as well to keep you motivated and give you incentive to keep working harder at your fitness goals. The long term rewards of looking and feeling great are fabulous, but sometimes you just want to see results now!

Introducing Earndit, a fantastic new FREE website that rewards you for exercising. By syncing with popular fitness tracking apps, websites, and devices like Nike+, Fitbit, Foursquare, MapMyFitness, EveryTrail, GarminFitness, and BodyMedia Fit you earn points that reward you for your fitness activities.

There’s also challenges you can participate in to win even more free stuff and a social aspect allowing you to follow other people and they can follow you. It’s one big happy instant reward communicate for physical fitness. Visit the Earndit FAQ questions page to learn how many points you can earn per activity, there is a 60 point maximum that you can earn per day.

Now you can have your fitness and uh eat it too, or wear it. The choice is up to you!

The author Billy Mills wrote about the eight lies of Iktumi in his book, Wokini. Iktumi, in the Lakota tradition is figure who is a liar or trickster. The eight lies of Iktumi prevent happiness and can even ruin a person’s life. I’m sure we’ve all fallen victim to these invitations to self-deception. We cannot change the past, but we can change how we look at the present.

1. If only I were rich, then I would be happy.

2. If only I were famous, then I would be happy.

3. If only I could find the right person to marry, then I would be happy.

4. If only I had more friends, then I would be happy.

5. If only I were more attractive, then I would be happy.

6. If only I weren’t physically handicapped in any way, then I would be happy.

7. If only someone close to me hadn’t died, then I could be happy.

8. If only the world were a better place, then I would be happy.

Photo Credit: FlickrCC – donireewalker

How could you change your thoughts so that you are not falling victim to the illusion? It’s very easy to find things to be angry and frustrated about. There are days when I feel like I hear and see 2% positive and inspiring conversation, and 98% complaining and negative conversation. One look at your social media stream and it’s probably full of complaining and snarky comments. It’s no wonder with this type of attitude prevalent in our society that we also have the largest rate of anti-depressant use in the world and that the majority of the people I know use alcohol or other stimulants to “have a good time”. Our society is focused on the shallow and material, and largely condemns that which has substance. (We are a capitalistic, so this is not a shocker.) I personally have lived many, many dark years where I went day to day angry, resentful, depressed, and in a lot of emotional pain because I believed in the illusions that were being sold to me by everyone around me. I thought that happiness was a place I’d arrive to one day when I’d healed from the scars of my life, found someone to share it with, and/or had reached a point where I didn’t have to be so budget conscious that I stressed over every dollar spent. I finally hit a point where I was just plain tired of it all and realized that happiness is a choice. We can choose to be stressed out over the events of our lives or the lack that we see, or we can choose to be happy about all of the wonderful positive things that we have. It can be a very hard battle and it requires a daily commitment and there are days when you’ll fail, but you have to get back up and keep trying. I’m not saying that you stop trying and cast all ambition aside, but instead to not let whatever it is you desire be the only path to happiness.

I subscribe to several sites that send daily (or weekly) inspiration emails that give me strength, hope, and guidance as I travel down my life path. These emails generally focus on building confidence, keeping motivation going, and encourage self love. Receiving these emails in my inbox has been a great comfort to me and has provided me with a daily dose of inspiration and wisdom that provide me positive food for thought and encouragement to keep in the forefront of my mind as I go through my day. Many days I feel as if the emails have been written just for me as they address topics that I’ve been struggling with, maybe you’ll feel the same way too.

I hope you enjoy them, subscribe, and I hope they help you as much as they have me.

– DailyOM – You can subscribe to a daily general inspiration and a specialized inspiration for each horoscope. These emails address subjects pertaining to the body, mind, and spirit. This website also offers online courses on a pay what you can scale, which is marvelous for those on a budget and for those who are feeling generous.

– The Daily Love – If you follow me on Twitter you know I retweet The Daily Love tweets all the time. This email is a “daily multivitamin for the soul” and focuses on achieving your goals, relationships, and being your authentic self.

– Tiny Buddha – This is really a weekly dose of wisdom, but there’s so many great articles included that I keep it in my inbox and read them throughout the week. Tiny Buddha offers “simple wisdom for complex lives”, and has the added bonus of giving you a free e-book on 92 life lessons when you sign up.

Wishing you all the strength, hope, and inspiration to dream and to achieve your dreams.

I sat at a stoplight this morning immersed in my thoughts, musing over the closing of Jillian’s and the opening of the new pub on the ground floor. I wondered why they added the sign as an annex to Jillian’s if it was closed and why they didn’t just take it down. Obviously, my thoughts were of nothing important yet I was totally consumed by them and not the present moment I found myself in.

My wandering mind suddenly noticed movement outside my passenger window and I was catapulted back to the here and now. A construction worker was working on the street and saying something to me, that I couldn’t understand and had been too distracted to fully catch. I rolled down my window and he said, “I just wanted to tell you good morning. I want you to have a beautiful day today. It doesn’t matter what happens to you or what you do, make it a beautiful day.” I felt like he had been sent as a messenger to remind me of the importance of everyday grace, and controlling one’s thoughts and emotions. As I drove away I thought about how cold it is and this poor man is outside working in it. He sure isn’t going to let that get him down though. His attitude and perspective brought him the warmth he needed to carry on and do his duties.

I wanted to share this experience of my encounter with an ordinary yet extraordinary everyday angel. It’s difficult sometimes to remember that we are all connected and impact one another. I hope to remain more mindful and not let the negative consume me and poison my day, leading to my poisoning the environment of those around me with my bad attitude. If we all took a moment to smile, say good morning, help someone in need, or offer encouragement and wisdom as this man did we could make this world a better place. Tell someone that you love them today, hug them, tell someone they did a great job, or give a dollar to a homeless person. Do something.